Death Threads, page 16
part #2 of Southern Sewing Circle Mystery Series
He laughed, a hearty sound that started somewhere deep in his muscular chest. “It’s an oil pan, Miss Sinclair.”
“I didn’t know that.” She pulled her left hand behind her back as well as she crossed additional fingers.
Slowly, he lowered the dipstick into a long tube and pulled it back out, his eyebrows furrowing as he examined the results in the light.
“You sure you haven’t changed your oil recently?”
“I’m sure.”
He dipped the stick again, the second reading doing nothing to dispel the downward turn to his lips. “It sure looks clean and full to me.”
“Could you change it anyway? I’m considering a somewhat lengthy road trip in the next few weeks and I want everything to be running right.”
“Where are you going?” he asked as he closed the cap and wiped his hands on a cloth he kept stuffed in his jeans pocket.
“Where am I going?” she repeated.
“That was my question.” Dirk Rogers leaned against her car and flashed a smile that surely charmed his way into more women’s beds than she could ever hope to count.
“I-I’m thinking about heading up to Chicago for a few days. To visit with some friends.”
Where on earth had that come from? The last thing in the world she wanted to do was run the risk of seeing Jeff ever again.
“Chicago, eh? I’ve never been there, myself. I bet it’s got some great nightlife, huh?”
She nodded.
“Man, I’d kill to get out of here for a few days.” He cast a sly look in her direction. “Got room for one more? I could cover the gas both ways. And maybe”—he raked a hand through his blondish brown hair—“we could go in on a place to stay . . .”
She considered squashing his hopes like a bug but she resisted. Until she had what she needed from this man, she needed to play nice. And if nice meant flirting, she needed to keep up pretenses for Debbie’s sake.
Using her best theatrical skills, Tori dipped her head and giggled. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I bet we can come up with something when I’m done with your car.” Dirk tossed the cloth to the ground and reached for a long black tool box that sat on the floor not far from her car. “This won’t take me too long. Why don’t you have a seat in my office and I’ll come get you when I’m done.”
“Your office?”
“Yeah, sure. The owner always has his own office.” Inhaling deeply, Dirk puffed his chest outward then pointed toward an open door on the far side of the garage. “It’s right there. Make yourself at home.”
“I will, thank you.” Cocking her head ever so slightly to the right, she flashed a slow, sensual smile at the man. “Thank you, Dirk. For being so sweet.”
“Mmmm. It’s my pleasure, Miss—it is Miss, right?”
She batted her eyelashes slowly. “Yes. But, please, call me Tori.”
He looked at her for a long moment, his charm-filled eyes taking on a slightly different edge—one of a more predatory nature that set her nerves on edge. Stepping backward, she hoisted her purse higher on her shoulder and pointed at his office door, her mind making mental calculations as to how quickly she could pull her cell phone from her back pocket if needed. “I’ll just wait inside.”
Willing herself not to run, Tori crossed the wide concrete garage floor and stopped just inside the doorway of the office, her mouth gaping open. For a man who played with grease for a living, Dirk Rogers was a certifiable neat freak. The large metal desk that stood in the center of the room was void of anything except a blotter-style calendar, a wooden pencil box, and a computer. Across from the desk stood a metal folding chair she assumed was for customers to utilize while filling out paperwork for their cars. A lone three-drawer filing cabinet stood in a far corner, a framed photograph of an old-fashioned car perched atop its dark gray metal surface.
She took a step farther into the room, scanned the certificates and various mechanic licenses hung with careful precision on each and every wall. A small window, designed to offer a view into the car bays, was covered by a set of wood paneled mini blinds that had been left in the closed position.
Peering quickly over her shoulder to confirm the garage owner’s whereabouts, Tori examined the room once again, her attention coming to rest on a door slightly recessed into the back wall. Did it lead to a bathroom? A storage closet? The outdoors?
“There’s only one way to find out,” she mumbled under her breath as she rounded the corner of the desk and grabbed hold of the recently polished silver knob, twisting her hand to the right as she pulled. She stepped back and peered up at the series of shelves that ran from top to bottom—shelves filled with auto supply boxes and tools she couldn’t identify. A second set of shelves on the bottom housed various office supplies—paper, pens, pencils, paper clips, Sharpies, and a plastic bin with crayons and colored pencils. Shrugging her shoulders, she reached for the door again, her eyes scanning their way up its interior side.
“Oh my G—” She clamped her mouth shut as a wave of nausea racked her body. There, just inches from her face, was a picture of Colby Calhoun—the same glossy black and white author photograph she’d seen countless times since moving to Sweet Briar. Only instead of the unobstructed view of Colby’s dark brown hair, smoldering gray eyes, and disarming smile that she was used to, this version was chock full of holes—hundreds of holes that covered every inch of the man’s handsome face.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Tori jumped backward, her hand instinctively slamming the closet door as she spun around to face a very angry Dirk Rogers. “I-I had to go to the bathroom. I figured that’s where this led.” She knew the words sounded pathetic, feared he’d see right through them, but she had to try. “I wasn’t trying to—”
“Snoop?”
Planting her hands on her hips, Tori forced a scowl. “Of course not. Why on earth would I be snooping around a garage?”
“I don’t know. How about you tell me,” he thundered as he kicked the door shut behind him. “Your car no more needs an oil change than you were looking for a bathroom. So what gives? Who are you?”
Squaring her shoulders, she inhaled deeply, willed herself to remain calm and in control. “I’m Tori Sinclair, just as I said.”
“Why are you here?”
She ignored his question, opting instead to reopen the closet door. Pointing at the photograph, she matched his intimidating tone with one of her own. “I think the better question is this . . . why are you using a picture of Colby Calhoun as your personal dartboard?”
Clenching his teeth as his lower jaw jutted left, Dirk stepped around the desk, closing the gap between Tori and himself with a threatening presence. “It seemed fitting under the circumstances.”
“Circumstances?” she asked as she backed into the door-frame. “What kind of circumstances could possibly justify mutilating someone’s picture like that?”
“What kind of circumstances?” He propped the heel of his left palm on the wall as he leaned his face mere inches from hers. “What kind of circumstances? How about his high-and-mighty attitude, his I’m-famous-you’re-not strut for starters.”
With a burst of energy she ducked out from beneath the man’s outstretched arm. “Colby Calhoun has never lorded his fame in anyone’s face.”
He turned around, his breath playing across her bare shoulders as his gaze inventoried her body once again. “That’s because you’re probably one of those women who fall for it hook, line, and sinker.”
“On the contrary sir, it’s because I believe it.” She gestured toward the dartboard once again. “So basic male jealousy made you do that?”
The man snorted. “Jealous of a blowfish like Calhoun? Puh-lease.”
“Then why?” she persisted despite the little voice in her head jockeying for an escape route rather than answers.
“Because he ruined everything. He stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and fixed it so everyone who’s ever taken pride in this town’s history is nothing short of a laughingstock now.”
“Oh c’mon. You can’t really believe anyone outside the town limits of Sweet Briar gives a hoot whether this town was burned by Yankees or a moonshine mishap, can you?”
“I can’t, huh?” He yanked open the top drawer of his desk and extracted a brick with white lettering spray painted on each side. “Then how do you explain this?”
“What is it?”
“Why don’t you take a look for yourself?” He extended his hand, placed the reddish brown brick in between hers as his voice took on a taunting quality. “Still think no one cares?”
She stared down at the brick, turned it over in her hands as she read each side . . .
SWEET BRIAR
HOME OF DRUNKIN
FOOLS TOO STUPID
TO USE A HOSE
“How did you get this?” she asked as she reread each side once again.
“Right through the middle window of my garage door, that’s how.”
“When?”
“Sunday night. After everyone within a day’s radius knew about that piece of trash Calhoun wrote.” Leaning over the top of his desk, Dirk pulled a dart from his pencil box and hurled it at the dartboard, the point hitting his intended target with the same accuracy he’d obviously maintained for quite some time. “I swear I—” The man clamped his mouth shut midsentence, opting instead to kick the leg of his desk.
“You’d what, Dirk?”
Reaching a grease-stained finger outward, the man let it trail down Tori’s shoulder as he slid his tongue across his upper lip. “How about you stick around for a while. I’m pretty sure a few minutes alone with me would make you rethink a guy like Calhoun. Not that it matters much now . . .”
“Oh it matters. To his wife. To his children. To his friends. And to the police chief.” Wrapping her hand around the strap of her backpack purse, Tori backed up around the desk.
“You mean Robbie?”
“Who?”
“Robbie . . . or—for the rest of the folks in town—Robert. Dallas. The chief.” He followed her toward the door to the garage, his gaze fixed on hers with an intensity that made her hands tremble.
“You call him Robbie?” she asked, her voice growing shrill.
“Sure do. We’ve been buddies for years.” He raised his arm to the door as she bumped into it, loosely trapping her once again. “Good, good buddies. The kind that are loyal to the end. No matter what.”
Summoning every ounce of courage she could find, Tori leveled an index finger at the man’s chest, poking him hard with each word she spoke until he backed up enough to allow her escape. “I don’t care who your buddies are. No amount of loyalty can keep the truth down for long.”
Chapter 16
Driven from her bed well before dawn, Tori sought refuge at the one place she seemed most equipped to deal with life’s curveballs. Yet hours later, she was still roaming around the library with no real intent or purpose. She’d replayed her conversation with Dirk Rogers over and over throughout the night, the dartboard and the man’s cockiness making sleep an unattainable goal. Sure, he’d frightened her on a personal level, but it was more than that. Much more.
Dirk Rogers’s anger over Colby’s article ran well beyond that of the average Sweet Briar resident who may have shaken a head once or twice or expressed a few choice words over the subject. Colby’s picture was proof of that.
But something about the garage owner’s actions in his office the day before had gnawed at her subconscious ever since, leaving her mind to torture itself with the kind of questions she simply couldn’t answer.
Was Chief Dallas’s integrity in this case truly compromised because of his long-standing friendship with Dirk Rogers?
Was a man who mutilated a picture of another human being capable of murdering that same person?
“Ugh,” she mumbled under her breath as she flopped onto the stool behind the information desk and dropped her head into her hands. “Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.”
There’d been so many times over the past few hours that she’d reached for the phone, ready to call Milo. But she’d stopped. If she was going to reach out to someone with the information she’d gathered, it wasn’t going to be someone who was battling his own misguided feelings about Colby Calhoun.
Lifting her head, she peered around the darkened room, the only hint of light streaming through the hallway from her office playing across a small handful of shelves and a few reading chairs. There was so much about Dirk Rogers that raised the hair on the back of her neck and sent her internal radar pinging. But he wasn’t the only one. Harrison James was every bit as angry at Colby as Dirk was, and he had a far stronger motive than simply being seen as a laughingstock.
“A laughingstock,” she said aloud, the sound of the word through her own lips making her sit up tall. “Why does that sound so familiar?”
And then she remembered.
“. . . it was kind of written in a rambling . . . whimsical way, bemoaning Colby for making Sweet Briar the laughingstock of the south . . .”
Debbie’s words filtered through her mind with startling clarity, the woman’s voice repeating the sentence again and again as if she were sitting behind the information desk at that very moment.
Was it a clue? Or simply an oddly timed coincidence?
Shaking her head, Tori grabbed the first few book request sheets the nursing home had faxed over the day before and willed herself to focus on work. Her great-grandmother had been a big believer in the watched-pot-never-boils way of thinking, and perhaps she’d been right. The more Tori tried to examine the possible suspects in Colby’s death, the more confused she became. Maybe concentrating on something else would be enough to bring her subconscious thoughts to the foreground where they belonged.
She looked down at the top sheet, her willpower deflating as she scanned Eunice Weatherby’s initial wish list . . .
1. A Cry in the Night by Mary Higgins Clark
2. In a Split Second by Colby William Calhoun
3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
“Oh Colby, I’m so sorry,” she whispered as the list blurred before her eyes. “So very, very sorry.”
Pushing the list to the side, Tori stood and wandered back to her office, the early morning sun ushering in waves of natural light that played across the tiny room. She stood in front of the window that spanned the east wall and stared out into the empty grounds of the library.
As much as she loved seeing the library brimming with readers, there was something special about the building when it was quiet, void of nothing but books—those that existed purely for entertainment and those designed to further people’s knowledge.
She leaned forward, rested her forehead against the cool glass. It wouldn’t be long before the sidewalks of Sweet Briar sprung to life with people walking to church, shopping for groceries, stopping for a book. Glancing over her shoulder she eyed the small digital clock.
8:45.
In a little over three hours, Nina would be unlocking the front door in honor of yet another day at the Sweet Briar Public Library. If Tori stayed, the busyness of work might quiet the bothersome voices in her head. But if she did that, she’d be forgoing the first full weekend she’d had off in six months.
A weekend she’d originally planned to spend with Milo . . .
“Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.” She returned her forehead to the glass and closed her eyes, reveled in the momentary feel of calm that came with the sun’s warmth on her face.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
Tori’s eyes flew open just as a woman’s well-dressed body darted behind a large bush just outside the window.
Raising her hand to the glass, Tori thumped back with a bent finger. The figure re-emerged.
Leona.
Holding her index finger upward at her friend, Tori jogged out of her office and down the hallway to the employee entrance in the rear. With a quick turn of her wrist, she unlocked the metal door and pushed it open, her head peeking around the corner. “Leona? What are you doing out here?”
“Shhh. Be quiet.” A red-faced Leona appeared from the side of the building, her hands clutching a large straw bag in front of her as if she were carrying something fragile.
“Why? What’s wrong? What are you doing out here hiding behind a bush and tapping at my office window?”
“Never mind that, dear. I have a problem.”
“C’mon. Come inside. Are you okay?” she asked, concern for her friend chasing all other thoughts away.
The woman shook her head, her normally salon-styled hair showing rare movement. “Isn’t there a policy about no animals in the library?”
“Animals? What are you talking about?” Tori’s gaze traveled to the bag in her friend’s hands. “Oh no . . . don’t tell me you have an animal in there. I really don’t want a pet, Leona. Not yet.”
Scowling, the woman shook her head again. “It’s not for you.”
“Then who—”
Looking one by one over each shoulder, Leona lowered her voice to a near whisper. “It’s one of Ella May’s bunnies.”
“What?”
“Shhh!” Leona hissed through clenched teeth. “You heard me, dear. It’s one of Ella May’s precious bunnies.”
Holding her hands in the air, Tori took a step back into the still open doorway. “Oh no. No, no, no. Please don’t tell me this is some sort of weird revenge on the woman for marrying a man you’d hoped to snag for yourself . . .”
“I don’t snag men, dear. I hook them, make them squirm with anticipation and desire, and then I let them go.”
Tori rolled her eyes. “Whatever. But is that why you have one of Ella May’s”—she reached out, wedged open a corner of the woman’s straw bag—“bunnies?”
“Don’t be silly. I don’t need to resort to things like revenge. I’m above that.” Leona’s chin jutted into the air, revealing a smudge of dirt.
“Uh, do you know you have dirt on your chin, Leona?”
